Jacqueline B. is the Founder and CEO of Q Department. Which is a music and sound design studio since 2003. The story with how they got into VR was they ended up at Sundance festival and witnessed some VR pieces and since then they haven’t turned back.
She says it’s a new medium, she has been shown VR horror films. she spoke as if VR is something crazy and captivating. It’s a very compelling medium for sound.
The mars VR bus experience.
They were approached by a production company, the brief and idea were creating a new generation that would be interested in exploring space and science. So their role was to make and bring this alive. On the VR bus experience, you would get on a bus and after a while, the windows became a screen. A mars vehicle is transformed.
They used spatial audio in this experience, to create a deeper illusion of immersion.
Spatial audio simulates how you listen in real life, and when done properly your brain thinks you are somewhere you’re not. VR with good sound is almost indistinguishable. With the visuals and sound effects combined, it can create a new level of reality.
She goes on to speak that audio quality is important for immersion, and it’s not just an audiophile thing. Something I didn’t consider at first but now seems obvious.
Spatial sound is so powerful as a medium. She speculates a rise of spatial audio, specific content through spatial audio. This will be an interesting medium to work with. This came out in 2019 and now I would say it seems like her idea were correct, its in apple AirPods and pushed amongst Apple and their streaming platforms and OS. Apple usually pioneers and push other aspects into popularity. I can assume and imagine this to be a future thing, especially with the metaverse happening, sound is a key aspect of immersion into these digital realms.
Nailing storytelling is the future of VR and nailing new ways of telling stories and that’s where the content is compelling is enough everything will fall in place.
I do think perhaps how I can incorporate this into my games design audio I’m working on? Even if it isn’t VR what can I take from this to add to it?